


Smiles (not soldiers)

by blcwriter



Category: Captain America (2011), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Fix-It, Friendship, Gen, IDK what this is except it's not Steve/Tony, Prosthesis, The Funvee Crew deserves their own fic, i think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-29
Updated: 2012-08-29
Packaged: 2017-11-13 02:48:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/498600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blcwriter/pseuds/blcwriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’d watched Stark, saw someone who squeezed hands and wallets and blood from people Natasha said were total stones.  And throughout it, he’d smiled.  Introduced the Avengers.  Smiled some more.</p><p>The fake plastic smile he’d worn then, the same one he’d given Steve the day they’d seen Thor take off Loki—it had been like every smile Steve had ever given the cameras back then, back when he wasn’t a soldier, just a monkey who danced and wore the red, white and blue.  </p><p>(In which neither are soldiers, not really, and both of them are still learning to smile.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smiles (not soldiers)

He found out, three weeks later, why Tony’d reacted so badly when he’d mentioned losing a soldier.

At the time, he’d just thought Stark hated him for whatever reason Steve hadn’t parsed out, just that the guy had been all bristles and prickles and bossy and bullying and the fucking smartest kid in the room, none of which Steve had ever liked. But Stark had known Coulson, had seemed upset, and Steve’d thought. Well. Like he always did, you didn’t have to be best friends with your men to take care of them. Except he’d misstepped with Tony.

Since shawarma, it had been this awkward dance of him trying to give the guy a little respect because clearly Fury had lied, withheld, misled, all of that stuff, and Steve must have lost more than a few brain cells to the ice to have let himself get propagandized like that. Not that it made Stark any easier to like, or get to know, the half-dozen times they’d run into each other on the helicarrier or at a P.R. conference or that one fundraiser they’d all had to go to because “you smashed half of motherfucking Manhattan, the least you could do is put on the metafuckingphorical dress, follow Stark’s lead, and raise shitloads of money, Stark can’t fix the city all by himself, and SHIELD’s budget half comes from him anyway, so go raise some goddamned money,” as Fury had said. But he’d gone. They all had. He’d watched Stark, saw someone who squeezed hands and wallets and blood from people Natasha said were total stones. And throughout it, he’d smiled. Introduced the Avengers. Smiled some more.

The fake plastic smile he’d worn then, the same one he’d given Steve the day they’d seen Thor take off Loki—it had been like every smile Steve had ever given the cameras back then, back when he wasn’t a soldier, just a monkey who danced and wore the red, white and blue. 

It was the same smile Stark was smiling in the pictures they had on Page Six this morning about some fundraiser for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and families. There was a long quote from Tony that wasn’t sarcastic, full of praise for “…soldiers, these kids, they’re the real heroes, they’re the reason I lived long enough to make Iron Man, and we as a society need to agree that it takes money, money they deserve and that taxpayers and billionaires should all chip in for, so we can treat their families right, give them the support they need when they come home so they can be everyday heroes, not just wartime ones….”

There was some young girl standing next to Tony in one of the photos; she had on a dress uniform and a prosthetic arm was sticking out of one of the sleeves. And it shone, that arm, that gleaming claw of metal that held a champagne glass and looked so fine-tuned that she could use it to draw. Her smile-- directed at Tony—that also shone. She wasn’t gorgeous; she was kind of round-faced and plain. But she was a soldier, that much was clear even without the greens, without the medals, without the Purple Heart on her chest. 

He scanned the rest of the article, clicked in on the pictures, on that too-tight, fake plastic smile, the same one Steve had when he’d had to perform in front of people he didn’t believe could ever want him—but he’d wanted them, or to be like them, or something, so badly that even when he didn’t get what he wanted because he was the only one (except that wasn’t true now, not really, between Thor and Bruce and apparently, maybe, Natasha) that even after the serum, he still got up there, everyday, put on that smile. Because he’d hoped, even if he hadn’t believed, that maybe, some day, he’d be one of them. Have done something to merit someone calling him soldier. 

Maybe, some day, he’d even believe it, and not feel angry because he’d done nothing. Been nothing. Not done enough. Not yet, anyway.

That smile on Tony’s face—that wasn’t the smile of a soldier. No. And Steve knew it—saw it in the mirror. Still saw it, in fact, because when you’d dropped your best friend, chickened out on saying you loved the one gal who’d mattered, woke up decades displaced?

Steve didn’t feel like a soldier all that much, either, much less fit for command. Even if he got up every day and tried to prove it, regardless.

He looked again at the screen of his computer. Blew up the smile. Saw the ghost image of his own face in the reflection the black screen cast back, layered over Tony’s. 

He smiled, then smiled until it wasn’t the same smile as Tony’s, wasn’t the same one he saw of himself when people took pictures of him and he smiled, uneasy at the way everyone in this new world just shared everything and thought they had a right to everyone’s business.

Because they didn’t.

He closed the newspaper screen. Opened his email. Started to write.

\--

Across town, thirteen point three minutes later, Tony ignored whatever expression was on his own face and reflected back from his coding laptop as he considered JARVIS’ question. 

Considered the particular email, and the general proposition it might represent.

“He’s probably only asking because he reads Page Six like an old granny and now he thinks I’m less of an asshole because I raised money for those kids. Those are _my_ kids. Of course I’d take care of them. I don’t have to be in the fucking Army to want to keep my Funvee crew in medical insurance, arms, and apartments.”

“Of course not, sir, no one would suggest otherwise. But , sir, it would foster an _esprit de corps_ , if you will pardon the militaristic expression.”

Tony sighed. Rubbed his forehead. He didn’t make weapons any more, and yet still, he had to coddle soldiers with sticks up their ass. 

Though Cap did try all the weird shit they had at the shawarma joint. Which was more than Tony’d thought, frankly.

“Tell him sure, be here by two, tell Bruce we’ve got company coming. I don’t know, make me take a shower before, order some food?”

JARVIS’ agreement was too fucking pleased with himself. Tony would have to look if JARVIS had coded himself for "insufferably smug."

Tony glanced back at the screen, ignoring the thoughtful frown on his face as he punched in the last line of code, watched it scroll, checked it for errors, and then looked at the new arm on the bench before him. 

Mindful of sparks, he cut the wires that attached the prosthetic to the interim controls. Then retyped the command.

It wiggled its fingers. Wireless.

Awesome.

He did it again, fiddled the wires, folded them back in to the gap he’d left at the top of the socket. They’d attach until she had the neurochip done.

“JARVIS, call Sergeant Ramirez, tell her I’ve got her arm ready, she can come get it tomorrow?”

“I’m sure she’ll be pleased, sir. Very much so.”

Tony ignored the small smile the slick computer screen showed, the one of satisfaction. Contentment, that another promise he’d made, a project he’d fixed, was all done.

Called for Dummy, who promptly spilled hot coffee all over his pants. 

He laughed. Threw his head back and howled, because he could build a state-of-the-art prosthetic arm (this shit was going to win _prizes_ ), but he couldn’t fucking teach his robot how to manage not to burn his crotch at least three times a week.

Dummy whirled his pincers. Grasped the wet fabric and pulled it away, because he’d learned at least that, _no hot wet fabric on human skin_. Waggled his arm back and forth.

Tony didn’t notice the grin that cracked his face as he went upstairs, changed, showered, and got ready to give Captain America a tour of the tower he’d conceded in his email “might not be as ugly as I thought, I’m still getting used to the new way of things. Can I still have that tour?”

Maybe Rogers wasn’t such a stiff after all. For a soldier.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this [ gifset](http://theappleppielifestyle.tumblr.com/post/30361715757/oopsabird-tardiscrash-the-moment-steve) I saw at theapplepielifestyle's tumblr, which got me thinking about Steve and Tony and how maybe some day, they might smile at each other for real, all of the time, because they understood what the other one meant.


End file.
